Over and Over
by Avexl
Summary: Post Reichenbach fic. John doesn't cope after Sherlock's death, then he sees him.


**Warnings: Shamelessly thrusting my views on Shakespeare on characters.**

**Major triggers for mental illness.**

**Also angst. This is pure angst. This is a horribly sad story, okay?**

* * *

John's degeneration happens slowly.

For the first few months after Sherlock's death, John copes. He isn't fine. He isn't okay. But he copes, and that's more than he thought he would. He gets up in the mornings, he goes to the surgery, he helps people, he comes home, he makes tea, he watches telly, he goes to bed, and repeats the cycle over and over again. This is what normal people do: they have their normal jobs, and bills, and chores.

It's been so long since John Watson's been a normal person; it doesn't fit like it used to—the normality. There was a time when it all felt like what life was like, what life should be like, and he could imagine nothing more than the neat parameters of aggressive ordinariness. Then there was the war, and coming home, and PTSD.

Returning from Afghanistan felt the closest to how John feels now; it had the same gnawing alienness, and a sharp sense that he didn't belong, despite knowing that he should. John has it once again, but a thousand times worse. He feels like he's some imposter, pretending he fits into normal life, a foreign spy who must do all he can to conform but knows nothing of the culture. It feels like a sham. The mundanity of it just doesn't seem fair; somewhere out there, even close to home, there are thousands of people doing the extraordinary, living the extraordinary, and existing how humans are supposed to exist. People are supposed to do stuff, most people don't though, and it feels wrong. The boring humans have their chances to do whatever they like, while the exceptional lie rotting six-feet under.

Sherlock didn't waste time being normal. He didn't waste life.

John doesn't know how not to be normal anymore—he doesn't know what he's supposed to do to live life to the fullest and all the other clichéd crap he hears others spouting off daily. But he also doesn't know how to be normal anymore. John's stuck in the middle of an impossible paradox to the point where he doesn't even understand what's going on around him or how he fits into it.

Objectively, he's doing a lot better than he was after Afghanistan. He hasn't got the limp—he felt sure when Sherlock died it would come back, but thankfully he was wrong. He can sleep—when he was in the midst of the worst of the depression he couldn't close his eyes for fear of the horrors repeating themselves over and over. It even took a little while after he moved into 221B for them to stop—Sherlock never mentioned them, though he was a little softer with John on the days after, a little gentler, a little more understanding, a little less Sherlock—yet he doesn't have the trouble this time. For the most part, he slumbers just as he always had before. He never dreams of it—the fall—he never dreams of anything. He only sleeps deeply, soundlessly and uneventfully.

And most importantly, he doesn't feel the overwhelming need to _just give in_, like then. He no longer spends his nights clutching at his gun, readying his shaking fingers to kiss the trigger and put a bullet in his skull. Instead he understands that the people around him need him, and he can't go around feeling like this forever, and maybe, just maybe, there'll be one more miracle that makes him want to feel better again. It happened with Sherlock, and Lord knows what else could happen if he just let himself live. So he does.

He neither throws himself into his work afterwards, nor does he neglect his duties. He quietly creeps into Sarah's office one evening and asks if he can have some more shifts; she's initially a little concerned and sceptical, but John explains the only reason he worked the hours he did before was so he could have time to work with Sherlock. Now it's a vacant gap of free time. Sarah's understanding and sympathetic towards John, despite the fact that Sherlock made sure the early spark of chemistry between the two dwindled into nothing, and she enquires about how he is and tells him he can come to her any time if he has trouble dealing with it all. She means it, too. She smiles in empathy, and John tells her the truth: that he still feels rough about it, though it's better than he expected to cope, and that he thinks with time things are going to be all right again. Sarah nods along with gentle affirmations and tells him she cares about him very much, and she hugs him after the conversation. She's an exemplary model of a generous, kind-hearted human being.

John doesn't know why when he gets home—well, Harry's because he doesn't feel like he can go home yet—he feels undeserved loathing at the whole interaction, regardless of the fact he didn't do or say any lies or anything bad and her the same. But John decides eventually it's because it was too civilised, too normal, for him. His gut aches, though his rational mind tells him it has no reason to. John detests grieving.

He grieves like he grieved for his mother when her liver finally collapsed under the strain; he had the same cycle of bitter sadness, anger and eventual resolution to the fact. He doesn't find solace at the bottom of a wine bottle like Harry, and he gets on with his life. The thoughts of Sherlock were all-consuming just after he died: the why, the how, and the overwhelming feeling uselessness amongst it all. After the funeral, they became less and less, so he accepts that he's coming to terms with losing his best friend. He thinks about it most days, when he comes home to Harry's instead of what is now _his _flat so he doesn't have to see Sherlock's stuff everywhere. It saddens him. He cries, like any normal person would, and that's why he's not ready to stay there again. John doesn't sort through his possessions because he feels it's too early to do it yet and Mycroft never shows any curiosity in doing so. Mrs Hudson asks him about it, and he's truthful, and she too smiles sympathetically like Sarah, but he sees the sadness in her eyes. It hurt her, too. He sometimes overlooks the fact she's grieving. He forgets. He feels awful about it.

John starts to see Ella a few months after; he wishes he'd gone sooner, really, but he was so caught up in it all he somehow managed to forget. He neglected his mental health. He knows he seems to be doing well, though he would feel much better about it if he spoke to her. He stopped seeing her after Sherlock because she'd said he hadn't dealt with his issues, just glossing over the things on the surface, and that they'd come back some day when he wasn't spending his time chasing criminals around London. That in conjunction with what Mycroft had said about her having the incorrect theory with his condition made him distrust her. But Sherlock and Mycroft aren't here to talk to him about dealing with his issues now.

He tells her everything, much like he had earlier with Sarah, and she sits and transcribes and nods along whilst the rain beats down so harshly it looks like they're going to be flooded in. They aren't. The white noise of the rain makes it easier—it's a distraction from the odd silence of the room, Ella's commanding yet reassuring tone, and John's voice, small and weak, something more like a sob. It hurts more talking to her, because she isn't silent like Sarah was—she asks him questions and makes him say the things he isn't sure he wants to. At the end of it all he feels drained, and a little of the oppressing weight around his shoulders has lifted, just a little. Ella tells him to say all the things he's kept repressed, to get it off his chest, and that otherwise he's doing remarkably well for someone in his position. John's thankful.

**xxx**

The following afternoon he goes to see the grave with Mrs Hudson whom he's decided he needs to look out for; she lets John ignore how horrendous she must be feeling because he was the head mourner, and that's unacceptable. They ride in the cab together with her wittering on about Sherlock, and it feels odd and déjà vu. It's only after they step out that John realises he hasn't shared a cab with anyone since Sherlock death. He's a painful mix of reminiscent sadness and strange, but it's not too bad, so John considers it another little stepping stone in getting over the loss.

Eventually, at the graveside, she leaves them to it. What Ella said the day before lays heavily on his mind, but his answer still remains: he doesn't want to say those things out loud because it doesn't feel like it's worth it. The only person who deserves to hear those words is lying beneath him, and John doesn't believe in God or an afterlife or any way that Sherlock could still hear the message. Not anymore, at least. But he does as he was told and says it all anyway.

"Um…mmm, right, you… You told me once that you weren't a hero. Um… There were times I didn't even think you were human but let me tell you this, you were the best man, the most human…human being I've ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie, okay? So…there." John sighs. It aches. It aches because Sherlock should have known this, he should have known and then perhaps he wouldn't have had to end his life. There was a lot of evidence against him, but John still believed him. John still has faith in him. He'd said before that he didn't care what people thought of him and John didn't accept it, and now he's been proven right. It makes him sick. The note, as Sherlock had called it, made no sense. Did he just think he could die and leave John and his life would go back to as it had been before? His whole life before Sherlock has been swept away, and it felt like one rather odd training exercise for life with him: going to university to train so he was useful to Sherlock with his medical knowledge; dealing with Harry's drinking so he knew how to handle deeply caring about someone who was difficult, petulant and who made himself the centre of a person's life; and Afghanistan was a horrendous preparation for all the gore and horror he'd encounter with him. Like Sherlock Holmes' purpose built companion, and now, with him gone, he had no use anymore.

"I was…I was so alone and I owe you so much," he says, touching the headstone, trying to feel closer to the man underneath him. He turns around, attempting to get away, but the last part needs saying. "Oh, please, there's just one more thing, right? One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be…dead. Would you do that, just for me, just stop it? Stop this."

He exhales again trying to hold back the tears, but it's easier to give in. _Just this once_, he tells himself, with the two of them out there alone. It's easier to sob because he does understand that he's gone, though there's a minute part of John's brain that wants it all to be a lie, a magic trick, and Sherlock to pop up and say he's home and demand tea and make a mess. But nobody, not even Sherlock Holmes, could endure falling from that building onto the cold, hard, unyielding concrete below. And he saw him. He saw the corpse. John has seen thousands of corpses, but nothing equipped him for that. And he scrambled for his hand amongst it all and felt no pulse—obviously, but he clung to the hope, as he does now.

He stands up straight, saluting him, the greatest man he's ever known—and he knew so many—and he says goodbye. He turns around and walks away.

He walks away even as he sees. As he sees through the corner of his eye the long coat and curls he saw flutter through the wind. It's him. It's unmistakably him. John's spent so much of his recent time thinking about him, visualising him, staring at all the pictures to know for certain. And he's his best friend; he is _sure_.

His hands shake—the tremor that left after he'd met Sherlock returning—as he struggles to keep his gate steady and he tries to stop the fresh tears in the corners of his eyes that are threatening to come and never stop. He paces over to Mrs Hudson and the pair sit in the back of a cab, without uttering a syllable, as John pretends that his whole life didn't shift a bit, like it had already in recent months. And he's courteous as she gets out of the cab at Baker Street, and he sits back alone till he gets to Harry's. He ascents the stairs that had so often injured his drunken sister two at a time, he opens the door, nods hello to Harry, walks to guest bedroom and crumbles.

He goes to pieces where he knows he shan't be disturbed. He shakes. He's never felt like it before. When they were at Baskerville, Sherlock described the terror of no longer feeling like he could trust his own mind, about seeing something he knew to be impossible, but seeing it nonetheless. John's seen Sherlock dead—he's seen the blood, the ashen face, the unfocused eyes. He's taken his pulse. John _knows_ what he saw wasn't real, however, this doesn't change the fact he _saw_ it. His mind has betrayed him, not even his brain and thoughts were safe anymore.

That night John has night-terrors. He relives it all, the whole, petrifying lot of it. That's when John slowly begins to stop coping.

**xxx**

He keeps thinking, in some vain hope, that it was all true. He aches for the genius he knew and loved to flounce back through the door again, and it aches to know it's never going to happen. As he lies awake afterwards, he turns on the TV to find something to quieten his aching brain. Romeo and Juliet's on—the nineties film with Leonardo DiCaprio. It reminds him of Sherlock.

Several months after John had moved in with him, he was struggling to veg out and watch some telly whilst his flatmate draped himself over the sofa as he thought about a case he was struggling to solve—although he wouldn't admit it. He was in one of the dark moods; it was one of the first times John had seen him like that, and he was somewhat scared by it. Channel surfing, John found that and settled down to watch it—as much he would _never_ admit it, he had always had a weakness for romantic films. He liked the drama.

It was already underway, but he knew the story well enough from school and culture that he wasn't put off by that. He turned off as he regarded the small screen, discovering that with Sherlock's dark moods there was an upside—normally, it was near impossible to watch something without his constant interjections. He turned to look at where he expected to see his friend lounging, but instead he was sat-up and watching the film with an incredulous look on his face. John tried to study him for a while, but Sherlock became conscious of the fact he was being watched. John smiled slightly and arched an eyebrow. "Enjoying a little romance, are you?" he teased.

Sherlock frowned and the troubled yet serene expression remained. "No. It's just…wrong." His voice was oddly soft and contemplative, not like it usually was as he insulted the inaccuracy of the TV.

"Well, I suppose modernising it is a bit of a bastardisation, but it isn't _that_ bad."

"It's not just that; the story is based upon an entirely false premise."

John chuckled softly, "So your problem is with _Shakespeare_?" Of course Sherlock could find fault with one of the most celebrated and well-known stories of all time, from _the_ most celebrated and well-known playwright and story-teller of all time.

"Yes."

John waited for a further explanation but Sherlock didn't speak. "Care to elaborate?"

The detective inhaled. "The story works upon the premise that it is perfectly possible to meet someone and fall in love with them instantly. It's a completely illogical assumption. At the time, maybe, it may feel to the couple involved like they are in love, but it is merely a chemical reaction—they feel sexual attraction and they mix the two to form an overromaticised ideal of how love works. Infatuation is not the same thing." Sherlock steepled his hands together to form a prayer position as he spoke. "Juliet is a thirteen-year-old girl—although she is almost never portrayed by someone that age—who meets a boy at a party, decides she's fallen in love, marries him, and kills herself after discovering he has. Does that not seem entirely ridiculous considering she knows the boy for less than a week? It takes months to feel that kind of affection—it takes a longer exposure to the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin to get to that stage. It isn't real, it's unreasonable."

John smirked at how seriously Sherlock was taking a story—a source of entertainment and nothing more, yet to Sherlock the entire that it was over-dramatic to be entertaining was abhorrent. "Pretty strong words there to someone who can't defend himself. What do you know about all this then?" He was genuinely curious about the possibility of Sherlock having a romantic life. It was before The Woman and all that disruption, and he hadn't heard much about that side of Sherlock, or even the mere idea of Sherlock being involved in romance with _anyone_.

In lieu of answering, Sherlock simply lay back on the sofa and returned to his earlier pose. Somewhere lost deep in thought. Eventually, when Sherlock had righted himself from his thinking stupor he murmured almost unintelligibly, "It's just science."

As John watches today, he can't help but reminisce and it makes everything feel a thousand times worse. He sobs silently in the spare room as the light from the television flickers across his face.

When he eventually falls asleep, he dreams for the first time in over a year. He watches Sherlock fall over and over and over again, and John's hands are covered in the deep burgundy that pools around Sherlock head, like a halo.

Waking up, John decides that he has to sort this out, he has to feel better again, and he's resolute that he's going to get over it. He washes his hands.

**xxx**

John can tell that Mrs Hudson is over the moon that he's decided to come back to Baker Street, though she doesn't show it—for fear of scaring him off again, John decides. It's hard to be back there—he left there after the funeral when Harry said he looked like shit and he needed to be somewhere that didn't remind him of Sherlock every day. Not that it made a difference, back then, because he couldn't even manage to sip his tea without uncomfortable memories coming back to him.

What makes it harder is that he's going have to start sorting through Sherlock's things soon. It makes his stomach turn. He's not ready. The doctor is caught between the odd place of having to decide which would be more painful: sorting through his things or leaving them where they lay for the time being and having to see them everyday. It's a close call, but John elects to do the latter. He'll attempt it when he's feeling better.

Mrs Hudson asks him about it a week later when she finds all of Sherlock's stuff still there; he tells her he isn't ready, he'll sort it out if she wants it gone though. She doesn't press the matter.

The nightmares intensify at 221B, but the affair is made marginally better by the fact he's in his own bed and he doesn't have to worry about concealing them from anyone else—Mrs Hudson only pops by now and then, and never at night. The first few nights it's the same one he had at Harry's, then things take an altogether more disturbing turn. The words of Sherlock's note twist until he's shouting at John, blaming him for all of it—it's ridiculous, John knows, and totally out of character for his friend, but his subconscious doesn't seem to care about anything other than making John feel as bad as possible. Sherlock, in his dreams, mocks him and smiles as he lets the doctor see his bones crush against the unrelenting pavement. No one around this time to see the accusatory, cold, dead eyes stare at him with a twisted smile of satisfaction.

But it goes deeper.

One night John finds himself behind it all, as the cause of it. He watches his arms purposefully outstretch and push Sherlock from the top of Bart's roof, a place where he trained—where he dedicated his life to saving others. He sees the horror flash across Sherlock's eyes; in this dream he doesn't want to die, but dies at John's hands anyway. He doesn't say anything as John pushes him; he just looks lost like a lost child, betrayed by someone he trusted. The last time he saw that look he was stood at a poolside, repeating everything from an earpiece, strapped with explosives and praying—praying he would survive. There was a second, a moment in which Sherlock thought he was Moriarty. It was a tiny one, but it was there. And Sherlock looked utterly perplexed, like everything he knew about the way he saw the world was wrong, when all the deductions and the analysis and everything became utterly fraught, because he'd let John in. It was why he opened the jacket, in the attempt to make him see, it was why he resorted to army training as he blinked out S.O.S. The idea that he'd make the last expression on his best friend's face of that dismay chills him to the bone.

He wakes up with his sheets wringing wet with cold sweat. He doesn't know what to do or how to get back to sleep. He looks over to the alarm clock on his side: 4.53 it says. He has no chance of sleeping before the alarm at seven, so gets out of bed and heads down the stairs into the living room. John has no idea what to do there either, so he settles on his default: when in doubt, make tea.

John's pouring the milk from the—now sanitary—fridge and picking up the mugs before he realises he's made two cups. It was something of a habit before, because Lord knows how bad his flatmate was at taking care of himself. He'd even brewed the spare how Sherlock liked it: hot, with scarcely a trickle of milk, the tea bag left in for only a few seconds, and as many sugars as John could manage without seriously worrying about the unhealthiness of it as a doctor. It isn't so much tea as beige, hot, sugary liquid. The sole reason why John stopped lecturing Sherlock on its appalling nature was that he so infrequently ate that its strength was necessary to keep up his blood sugar.

Staring at the cups, he knows rationally that he needs to just pour the sugary mess down the drain and leave the mug in the sink, yet he finds himself unable to. After five minutes of staring and worrying about his own tea going cold, he ends up taking it into the living room and plonking it down on the place mat on the usable part of the coffee table, where Sherlock used to sit. John sits in the armchair, as he always had, and turns on the TV to watch an immensely uninteresting breakfast show where the presenters witter on about the same five news stories over and over again.

He genuinely forgets the tea until he gets up to get ready for the surgery, picking up what would be Sherlock's, pouring it down the drain and leaving it in the sink. He doesn't think about it for the rest of the day.

**xxx**

At night, the dreams become more graphic. When he falls this time there is an audible crunch as he hits the ground; at some point, John ends up dreaming of him landing on top of him, and being pinned down by his friend's dead weight. He stops sleeping nearly altogether because he cannot bear the abhorrence of the dreams. Waking up one night to sheets damper than those of the usual cold sweats, he realises that he's pissed the bed. He feels like a small child. He washes the sheets immediately in the dead of night so Mrs Hudson doesn't find out when she's doing the rounds cleaning; she doesn't need to come as often now Sherlock isn't around, John cares for himself, but she still does to check how John's doing. John hates it because it's been several months since the death, so he can't show how crap he still feels for fear of looking like he isn't coping—which he isn't—and he finds that without Sherlock the pair have nothing in common to talk about, meaning each interaction is painfully awkward. She keeps asking him if he's started sorting through Sherlock stuff yet, to which the answer is a definite no.

Outside of the flat and his exhaustion, life is glaringly wearisome, doing the same thing each day. After John finished his training, he joined the army so he could feel challenged and do something different each day, and each day at the surgery reminds him why he did that. John Watson was not made for normal civilian life—it leaves him empty. What makes the whole situation worse is how no one else around him seems to think the habitualness of life is tedious; they buzz around in their silly little lives doing next to nothing at all and are happy, thus making John more of an outcast. He feels like he's an actor playing the same role of mediocrity over and over; he doesn't fit in. It's unrelenting—everything is over and over and over and over and over... Everything is the same. He now understands why Sherlock found the world so irksome, why he sought solace in solving puzzles.

He sees Ella regularly, once a fortnight, and doesn't bother trying to omit the parts of his life that make him seem like he's not coping—he's not. He knows it. He was in a better position a couple of months before, before the graveside. The only part he doesn't tell her about _is_ the graveside because there's a big difference in showing that you aren't coping with something and actually being delusional. He hallucinated. He's a doctor and he doesn't feel all there. The last thing he needs right now is to be made to stop working; it's the only thing he really has in his life.

Telling her about the dreams is the hardest part, John decides, because he didn't even tell her about the dreams after Afghanistan. Although John can see she's trying to be impassive, he can read the worry in her face. He's gotten better at reading people since meeting Sherlock. He can read the worry from the careful, impartial mask she tries to portray.

"John, I need you to tell me _honestly_," she says, as if Ella cannot even trust him to answer the simplest of requests; "how many hours sleep have you been getting a night?"

It's oddly difficult to provide an answer. "Erm, I think…maybe two...a couple of hours a night."

Ella scratches something down in her notepad. "Right, and would that be the average since the dreams began?"

"Yes…well, no. When they began I was getting a lot more—they didn't happen as often. Now, though, yeah that's about normal," John replies truthfully.

"When exactly did the dreams begin?"

He almost tells her it all then. "Few months. Like I said, it wasn't as bad before. I didn't think I needed to discuss it."

Her fingers fidget slightly, playing with her pen; John's noticed that she does that when she's thinking hard. She's been doing it more often lately. A cold memory twists to the surface of his mind of Sherlock deliberating over details of a case—his face held the same expression and his hands fidgeted, except they moved into a prayer-like posture. "I think that maybe I should refer you to someone else who can prescribe you medication for your trouble sleeping. You look exhausted; the lack of sleep is only exasperating your negative feelings, and it turn, the negative feelings are preventing you from sleeping. It's a circular problem. You know the drill—you're a doctor—you understand fully the dangers of exhaustion, especially after what you've been through.

"They may consider a course of mild antidepressants. Sherlock's death has clearly affected you and the worry is now that you'll spiral into a deeper, long-term depression. You've been borderline for quite some time now. You've said you don't like taking medication, which I appreciate fully, but I've left it as long as possible on that front. If I didn't refer you at this point, I wouldn't be doing my job with duty of care as a therapist."

"So you're saying I'm not in control of this?" John says, waving his hands slightly. He doesn't mean for it to come across as defensively as it does.

"Those weren't my words at all, John." She's trying so hard not to make him feel like he's lost, but he knows all of it is necessary, if he's truthful with himself. "Even coming to see me of your own accord, acknowledging that you needed counselling after Sherlock's suicide is more than most people manage in the grieving period. You needn't feel helpless—you have got a better grasp of this than you seem to think."

Begrudgingly, he takes what she says to heart and goes to see the psychiatrist she arranges for him to meet. He completely confirms her observations and starts him on low dosages of sleeping pills and antidepressants for a trial period to see how he reacts to them. He swallows his pride and he takes them, mostly out of desperation, because he's trying to get better. He is.

With the medication, John sleeps deeply, like he did before, and it's bliss. The dreams disappear and John finally feels like he's making progress again after everything that happened at the grave.

Then, after a while, they start to have other effects.

The first fantasy is entirely innocent: it's of Sherlock and him snuggled tightly in a duvet, every inch of skin pressed against one another but not in a sexual way. They're cuddling. Sherlock's head slots under his chin perfectly, with wispy curls tickling his neck as they breathe. Sherlock's eyes are closed but he's mumbling the details of a case—triple murder—though John's not paying much attention as he runs his fingers up and down Sherlock's back.

Despite the dream's odd nature, it's pleasant, especially compared with what John's used to over the past few months. It's only waking up that's a shock to the system. An ice-cold jolt to knock him out of the most satisfying sleep he's had in ages. In the end, it's easier to just disregard the dream as a bizarre side-effect of medication and continue _not to think_ about it, even as similar dreams repeat.

When John dreams of tasting every pore of Sherlock's porcelain skin, it stops becoming an option. Picturing your dead, male flatmate naked and writhing in beautiful agony beneath you is not something, as a supposedly heterosexual male, you can neglect.

Waking, he ignores tries in vain though to brush it off, _scrubbing_ his skin of the filthy shame of sexually fanaticising about a dead man who didn't even do that sort of thing when he was alive, and trying exit the front door as rapidly as possible to dull his mind. The issue demands addressing and by the time John reaches the surgery he's already trying to judge what leaves him with more disgust—the fact that he enjoyed imagining having sex with a man who was his friend, or the tenderness of the act. It was soft, and slow, and awkward, and Sherlock was even distracted, tapping out case details on his phone for part of it. It felt warm and alarming how detailed and realistic it seemed to be. It wasn't a sugar-coated, idealised imagining; it felt real and human. His subconscious constructing what would seem like the reality of that kind of situation; because Sherlock _would_ be distracted, and it _would_ be awkward in some parallel world where they did somehow end up together.

In the midst of that, John's impending heterosexuality crisis falls out of his mind, feels insignificant under the weight of what he's coming to realise. He's not sure he's ready to say it out loud yet, but he knows.

**xxx**

The monotony fades out. He rarely thinks about how boring life is anymore because he has new thoughts to obsess over and let rule his head. It's like it was when Sherlock was alive—no matter what else ran through his head, however complicated or trivial, his mind would eventually settle back to the thoughts about times he'd gotten him into trouble; or the detective's odd, dry sense of humour; or worrying about if he'd eaten, what was in the fridge, and whatever he feared Sherlock would next resort to in order to complete The Work.

It's better. There are still the little quirks and cracks here and there—he still finds himself making a second cup of tea and he hasn't tidied Sherlock's stuff away yet—though overall, he doesn't feel as depressed. He starts going out with Stamford every so often when he can get away from the kids; it takes him a bit longer with Greg, but he manages, in the end, to start seeing him too. Greg makes a noticeable effort not to talk about his work or Sherlock, and he flinches when he compares some smartarse character on TV to Sherlock. It's a slip of the tongue, and it was fine. "Look, it's okay. We can't go on skirting around the obvious for ages. We both knew Sherlock; we are going to have times when we're going to talk about him. Ignoring it doesn't make sense. I don't mind. It's been over a year now," John smiles meekly.

"All right. I'm glad to see you're doing well; I didn't want to start something. It's just, afterwards…you didn't talk to me or any of the Yard, and I thought it was still raw, you know."

"It was, but I'm on the mend now. And I didn't know how to start talking to you again after _it_. So much of everything before—friends, relationships—was tied into him, you know. It's just weird."

"I understand," Lestrade says. "God, has it really been a year?"

"Yup. Fifteenth of June was last Saturday," he replies.

"Jesus—I didn't even realise. I feel like a prat. I know I wasn't his friend like you—_no one_ was like you with him—but I at least thought I'd remember that. How was it?"

"Honestly, yeah a bit shit. Wasn't as bad as just after, though, so I guess that's good," John says truthfully." It's fine, you know, not remembering when. You'd have had other stuff on—work, family shit. It'd be better if I didn't have to remember."

And they fall back into light-hearted conversation about football scores and telly.

**xxx**

He tells Ella. He was never supposed to—it just slipped out. So much of John's tight-lipped control is deconstructed by her; however this is far further than John can bear. There are questions coming, and John doesn't know how he's supposed to answer them; he doesn't want to be misconstrued. He's been doing better and everything's all about to be blown to pieces because he couldn't keep himself composed.

She looks worried. He hasn't seen her ever look this distressed with something John told her, even when he exposed how depressed he was. He knows why, of course he knows why: it's been over a year and he's said _that_.

"John, you say you're in love with him. You use the present tense in that statement," she eventually states, carefully avoiding any questions but a prompt nonetheless.

"Yes." John feels naked; the room's dropped in temperature and he can feel the goosebumps rising on his skin. Everything's unprotected.

"Present tense, not the past. You haven't said that before."

"Have I not?" John deflects.

"You _know_ you haven't." It falls silent again, and John doesn't know if it's a reprieve or it's worse. John's aware he's not going to be able to talk himself out of this questioning; he wears his heart on his sleeve, and now it's coming back to get him. "You loved him before?"

"No, not really. No." She frowns and pauses again before speaking. The room's full of too many pauses, and too much of a chill for August summertime.

"If you weren't in love with him before, why are you in love with him now?" she questions.

"I—I don't know. I must—must've been before and I didn't really notice, or, anything… I'm not sure."

"These feelings towards Sherlock, did you notice them before or after his death?"

John's not liking this line of enquiry. "Err, it was probably after…then…really."

"Did anything prompt these feelings?"

John bites his lip and inhales. "I don't know. It's just…Sherlock's the kind of personality it's easier to like when he's not around. It's easier to notice the good parts when you aren't lumbered with the lack of social empathy, the megalomania, the belief that I should be a servant to his every whim."

"Yes, from your descriptions of his sociopathic behaviour that's completely natural. He did have a tendency to use you to facilitate his own needs."

John is enraged. "He wasn't a _sociopath_, he wasn't at all."

"You've said on prior occasions that he told you he was a sociopath."

"Yes, he said that but he clearly wasn't. He couldn't have had antisocial personality disorder—he had a capacity to love and cared for other people. He didn't like to admit it because he was convinced that it would interfere with his work but it was wrong. He wasn't wrong very often, but he was on that." John can't believe that someone who is supposed to be a mental health professional could get that so incorrect; he can tell that much and he only has the limited knowledge of psychology from being a GP. "I even heard him deny that being a psychopath and insist _instead _that he was a sociopath. Even I know that's the same thing; he would have known that as well because he took pride in knowing things like that. He said it but he didn't believe it for one second!" John's shouting now.

Ella looks a little perplexed by the situation. "He frequently used you for his own means, with little to no consideration of your needs, and showed next to no capacity to empathise with other people. He made you risk your life several times."

"NO, he _DIDN'T!_" John roars. "The times when I risked my life, when I put _myself_ in danger, I did it for _my own reasons_. He cared and he always came for me when I was in trouble, like I did for him, because he was my friend. Half the times he tried to go off gallivanting without me _because_ he worried it'd be too dangerous for me. Don't go accusing him of using me, because I used him in equal parts. We were a partnership. He didn't take advantage. I _want _to do those things for him, and that's why I do it—there is no other reason. I deal with his crap, I make his fucking tea, and it's my choice. I do that because I like doing things for him. You don't even know him."

It takes a few seconds to process what he's divulged and catch back up again. His anger dissipates almost as quickly as it arrived. And when it does, John's made his decision.

"John—"

"I'm leaving."

"I don't think that's wise. There is a lot we still need to speak about."

"No there isn't; I'm fine."

"John, you still are displaying problems with anger after Sherlock's death, with—"

"Don't say his name. Seriously, I'm fine," John says huffing out a breath, because he does feel fine. "I stopped taking the sleeping pills a while ago, and my dreams are fine. I've come down from the antidepressants to taking zero; I can take care of myself from now on. Thank you, but I'm not coming back."

John gets up from the uncomfortable chair, in the overbearing room, grabs his coat and heads for the door. "If you really don't want to see me, as much as I don't recommend changing your therapist, I could find someone else for you to speak to."

"Why? People are all the fucking same. I'm fine," John utters, halfway out the door.

"John, you're not fine. It's okay not to be fine."

"I am fine," he says as he shuts the door with a sense of resoluteness.

**xxx**

It occurred whilst he was out. He finally returns from his God-awful—final—appointment with his therapist to see the flat looking more than half empty; it actually looks ordinary for a change, but John's so used to seeing it overstuffed that it looks wrong.

Panicking, he races around the flat looking for where all of Sherlock's possessions could be. "MRS HUDSON!" he yells.

"I'm in here, love," comes a voice from the bedroom—Sherlock's bedroom—and John freezes.

"Mrs Hudson?"

"I'm in the bedroom."

John moves warily to the room, his hands shaking as he opens the door. In there, boxes are stacked high, filled to the brim with the missing items. "Mrs Hudson, what have you—?"

She smiles softly as she leans against the bed to help herself up. "Damn this hip," she says as she walks closer to John.

This room was a sealed room; no one had been in here since Sherlock died, not even John. It lay just as pristine as it had been; this was the only room Sherlock ever managed to keep unsoiled. It looks exactly as it had over a year ago when Sherlock died, with the exception of a hearty sprinkling of dust about the place, and the addition of the boxes against the wall.

"What have you—" John's throat is unable to work.

His landlady lays a tender hand on his shoulder in reassurance. "It's been such a long time, John. And the place was a mess. I didn't want to throw anything out without you going through it first, but the living room and kitchen looked awfully untidy with Sherlock's stuff everywhere. I thought I'd bring it in here." She's being as delicate as she can and nurturing, yet John senses himself fracturing under the pressure.

"But_ I_…was going to. I was going to have done it. You needn't have; it must have hurt your hip. That's…that's why I said I was going to do it." _Calm down, John. You need to calm down._ His run in with Ella earlier and now this has driven his temper to breaking point. _This isn't Mrs Hudson's fault; she's done nothing wrong. You don't have any reason to be angry; she was just trying to do something nice, as misguided as it may have been. Don't get mad._

"It's fine, John. I didn't mind. It's—" The gentle pressure of Mrs Hudson's hand burns through his coat, still on after the appointment. His hand mirrors hers and he places it on her shoulder to keep himself steady. "Over a year is long enough, don't you think? It can't be helping you to see his stuff around here. I'm not throwing it out—you can go through it later—I just moved it in here."

The anger being held back encroaches trickle by trickle as she speaks, until the damn bursts. "It was fine…I was fine with where it was. And now it's all…" He also feels vaguely like he's going to start crying.

"Yes, but I just…" The hand on her shoulder is contracting unpleasantly. Mrs Hudson leans away from his touch and brings her arm down; she looks afraid. "It's time for that stuff to go now." Her tone is motherly and authoritative, despite her fearful glancing.

"You didn't even ask me." His voice is rising.

"I tried to before, but you weren't—"

"I was his friend and his flatmate—he left everything to me so I should sort through it."

"I'm sorry. It is my house much as I love you living here and I just wanted—"

"HE LEFT IT TO ME. IT WAS HIS STUFF HE LEFT FOR ME! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TOUCH HIS THINGS AND MOVE THEM!"

Her voice comes out weak and hollow. "Please let go of me, John."

Summoning his senses, he releases his hand from the top of her arm; his fingers had dug in and gripped her. The landlady backs cautiously away and out the door.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's fine; I'll just leave you," she swallows.

"No, I really didn't mean to—" He can already hear her footfalls on the stairs. "I'm not…"

John doesn't hurt women. It's one of his rules in life; something which was never even flexible in that principle, even when Sherlock was around and he had to defend himself. He'd sooner let himself take a thrashing if it meant hurting a woman to get out of it. His friend tried to change it—even at one point stating it was sexist not to defend oneself adequately from a perpetrator purposefully because of their gender—yet John couldn't do it. The doctor's seen patients who have come into A and E before who regularly get beaten around by men. The look of complete and utter distrust in him, because he's male, physically repulsed him—the idea that someone could beat someone's soul out of them like that. He saw a battered husband whose wife put him like that once, and it still disgusted him, but still women are a no-go zone. He's old fashioned like that. Women generally tend to be weaker than him physically anyway, despite his short stature, due to his days in the army. But even if he was attacked—and he has been—by a woman physically stronger than him…

He just can't.

But he has. He's hurt Mrs Hudson—a harmless, frail-looking lady, and he tried to crush her shoulder.

John doesn't know who he is any more.

He falls to pieces in that room, amongst his friend's accoutrements, and sobs for hours.

When he wakes from a sleep he didn't realise he was having, he creeps out, but the room keeps calling him back—anxiety rises when he thinks about leaving.

In the end, he grabs his duvet and pillow and returns to Sherlock's floor for the night. It's lacking floor space in there with the boxes, but he doesn't think he can sleep in the consulting detective's bed—it's still unmade the way Sherlock left it.

In the morning, he makes two cups of tea with too much sugar and forces himself to gulp down the fluid in spite of its sickly taste—he takes his tea like Sherlock's now. About a third of the way through the cup, he wonders if that's what his mouth tasted like. It makes it easier to savour the rest.

He goes to work.

**xxx**

John's surprised when he looks in the mirror over the mantlepiece he doesn't look like him. He realises he hasn't looked at a mirror properly, other than a curt glance for shaving, for an extortionate amount of time. He looks older, but not haggard; he's taken to sleeping well on the floor of Sherlock's bedroom and daydreaming half the day away. He's lost weight dramatically, yet completely unintentionally. Then again, when he thinks about it, he's heard a few comments off Sarah lately asking if he's been eating enough. He hasn't. He wonders if he could fit into those tiny shirts of Sherlock's now.

He hasn't been doing a lot of things he's supposed to have actually. Moving Sherlock's stuff for one, sleeping in his own room for another. Nothing feels real anymore; he's existing in a muddled daydream half the time, but he can't bring himself to care. Anything feels better than he was before. He can't go back to that, the guilt, and all the rest of it. Now is better. He knows now is better. It doesn't matter how much time he spends daydreaming, provided he's still fighting and breathing. He's not giving up like he did. Not while he still has his sanity.

It's still hard to go out, so he spends a lot of his time alone in 221B, but Stamford wants to see him tonight. It's not one of the obligatory "Hey, how are you? And by the way, how are you coping—are you having a breakdown? I want to try to save you" type get-togethers that he had to endure just after. To everyone else, he appears fine. _I am fine_, he reminds himself. No one else need know how much he loves Sherlock, how much he misses him. It's none of their business.

He arrives five minutes early though Mike's already there. The doctors smile and laugh as they exchange anecdotes—mostly about Mike's family; his wife's expecting their third child. It's all so blissful and tranquil. _If this is what_ _going out's normally like, _John thinks, _I might just come out more._

Pretty soon John's back at the bar, his drink of choice an orange juice because he's not going to go down the road of his mum and sister, and a petite brunette topples onto him in her skyscraper heels. They contrast with the rest of her outfit—a conservative, girly blouse with tattered, over-bleached jeans. John doesn't know why he finds that so charming, but he does. She's around his age with a shy smile, and thoroughly attractive.

"Sorry," she says, leaning into him but blushing all the same. "I promise I'm not this clumsy normally. These're my friend's shoes, see. She twisted her ankle but didn't want to go home without any, so we swapped. It looks like I'm probably going to go the same way."

John laughs. "That's very noble of you to suffer on her behalf."

"Noble's maybe not the right word. She's one of those people who can be rather…_persuasive_ when she needs something." She smirks as she speaks, "You know, the type of friend that gets you to do stuff that sounds great at the time, not so much later."

He pauses and grins. "You have _no_ idea. I'm John, by the way."

"Mary. So…are you with here with anyone?"

"Yeah, I am. Just getting some drinks…obviously." She looks sad. "With a friend," he clarifies. Her smile is enchanting.

"Well, I'm sure your friend can wait five minutes whilst you steady me on my feet." Her dark fingers twirl the ends of her hair as she speaks.

A chill shoots up the doctor's spine and he doesn't quite know why. She's gazing at him too keenly; he hasn't had to deal with any admirers in a while because he's not exactly looked his best. But she's…nice. And he feels awkward and wrong. He's out of practice with talking to anyone who he doesn't already know or is a patient. _How does small talk work again?_

"Yeah, I think he can." _Is that right? That sounded about right. _"So has your friend left you alone here now?

She regards him with friendly eyes. "Yeah. She didn't really say much to me—looked like she'd pulled," Mary replies.

"Well, it's all right for some."

"Yeah, it is." She leans in and puts her hand cautiously on John's bicep. Instinctively he recoils. "I—I'm sorry, did I not read the signs right?" She's apologetic and it makes John feels vaguely guilty.

"Oh, no. It was probably me. Sorry."

She steps back using the bar to steady herself. "Let me guess: girlfriend?"

"I'm sorry, he's just—"

"_Boyfriend?"_ She looks shocked but not angry. "I should have known—my gaydar's been way off lately. What's his name?"

This is confusing to John: he knocked her back, yet she still wants to talk to him. She's acting like it was her fault; it clearly is his. "He's called Sherlock," he says before he can stop himself. He blushes and she makes a long "awww" noise. _I'm not interesting._ _Why does she still want to talk to me? _his subconscious questions, and he decides to back out before he gets too deep into divulging secrets to strangers. "Well, I probably should get back to my friend now…"

Her sigh in reply is soft and is deepening John's guilt at the whole interaction. "Nice speaking to you, John."

"Bye."

And he's sweeping off, back to the table, as quickly as possible and trying not to look back, though he feels the weight of her gaze linger.

**xxx**

By the time John makes it home, he's three sheets to the wind and extremely tired, so he decides against Sherlock's room for the night—in all honesty, he's not sure if he'll make it that far—and elects to plonk down on the sofa.

On his way to his destination, he notes that the front door is open and that he genuinely can't remember if he'd left it like that or not. It doesn't sound like something he'd do, although he was distracted when he left. He's too drunk to think about that; if there is a burglar in his house, he really doesn't care to fight right now—they can take what they want and leave as far as he's concerned. He carefully trudges his way up the stairs, through another open door, before he reaches the living room.

There are a myriad of different ways that sobriety can creep on you; this time it hits John like a bucket of ice water.

He's just sat there—nothing extraordinary—his long limbs tucked beneath him wrapped in his winter coat, waiting for John.

Waiting for him.

He doesn't say anything, instead keeping his expression impenetrably blank and blinking slowly.

John doesn't know what he's feeling, though he hears his breath speed up.

In all of John's wildest daydreams, it isn't in any way how he imagined it. He had visions of coming home to find Sherlock and pouncing—literally pouncing—onto him and kissing him and hitting him and yelling, so much yelling. He imagined anger at him for betraying him, for leaving him for so long, yet the prevailing joy of it all being wrong and finding out he isn't alone after all. That's John's most shameful fantasy, the one that seemed completely improbable yet plausible: the one where he comes back. And it's sat in front of him. It is not real.

When John's brain finally starts to come back online after the meltdown of his brain after the man sat on the chair turned his world upside-down, he's decided the feeling he's having is hollowness. Beyond that, he hasn't a clue.

The silence stretches out too long in front of them, both of them waiting for the other to speak and longing to find the right words. And John's sure he isn't going to break the quietness.

"John." It's a syllable, and the flood gates have opened.

"No." They're scarcely whispering.

"John, it _is_ me, before you doubt it. I know you're going to be alarmed."

"No." His voice rises.

"John, it is."

"No, no, no, no, no, no," he chants, closing his eyes. This isn't real.

"John, listen to me. I'm here. Please."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." He rocks back and forth as his eyes screw together tighter. If he can just say it enough, then it'll stop. It has to stop. It's not real.

"You have to listen to me, John."

"YOU ARE DEAD. I WATCHED YOU FALL! I WATCHED YOUR CRACKED SKULL BLEED ONTO THE PAVEMENT! I TOOK YOUR FUCKING PULSE!" Sherlock takes a pace forward and tries to reach out to touch John, but he slips back against the door. "What's happening? Why is this happening? Please just stop. Just… He's dead, he's not here." His fingers tangle in his hair.

Sherlock goes to step forward, and then thinks better of it. "You have a right to be confused. But I'm real, and I can explain all of this."

"He's dead. He's not here. I'm losing it. God, please no."

"You're not. I'm real. It was an illusion; I had to make it look like I died or they'd kill you, and Mrs Hudson, and Lestrade. It was a trick," the detective tries to clarify, his voice calm and quiet.

"You just—" John says through his tears. "How?"

Slowly, Holmes sits down on the sofa, staring at John as he does and vaguely gesturing at the chair in front of him, though John refuses to move from his place pressed at the door. "You're right; I did jump off the roof. That is correct." John swallows loudly, and Sherlock attempts a smile that comes off a lot more pained than he intended and completely inappropriate. "I jumped into a truck; there were enough bags to break my fall. I did hurt my head and break a few bones, though for the most part, I was unscathed considering the drop. There is a technique that many magicians have used in the past of putting a rubber ball—"

"Stop," John says brokenly. "I can't…I can't do this. I really can't do this." His legs give out under him—he's surprised they didn't earlier—and he falls to the ground like a rag doll, his limbs splaying in awkward directions. He starts rocking again. "No, no, no, no—"

"John, please."

"Do you know what losing you did to me?" accuses John distraughtly. He can't make out whether he despises Sherlock more or himself now. "Do you know how hard it is for me to even get up in the morning?" Sherlock averts his gaze and stares intently at the floor—he's starting to lose the battle to remain emotionless. "Do you even care? What am I doing? Why is this happening to me?"

"Yes. I do." He stands up and crouches next to his friend, unsure of what to do with the sobbing man before him. His hand reaches out tentatively to try and comfort him in some way, but he doesn't know what he's doing—Sherlock is out of his depth. "I didn't want to. I didn't have a choice."

Sherlock's body hits the wallpaper before he knows how to react, and John is pressing into him. "You didn't have a choice? Of course you had a fucking choice, you _ignorant_,_bullshitting_, _lying_ cunt. You could have done something, anything, but _that_. You left me. You don't have a clue what that did to me—you don't even fucking apologise because you're such a—fuck! MY FUCKING HEAD, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" John cries out each word, and Sherlock hasn't a clue how to react. His friend's emotions are flitting back and forth and he doesn't know what to do; _is that how normal people would react?_

"I'm—"

"I love you." John imagined saying those words too in his daydreams of having Sherlock here once again, and he created a heartfelt, tender, emotional moment in his brain, with a crushing kiss against his lips for good measure. Instead, it feels like a declaration of hate. Sherlock grimaces as John pulls him down, clutching at his suit that now hangs loose on his desperately thinner frame. And he doesn't do this, but he lets John cry and scream into his shirt, his tears streaming and nose running, staining the pale blue fabric below. He lets him because he knows he deserves it, and he's home.

**xxx**

When the doctor eventually cries himself quiet, he lies grasping at Sherlock's limbs for a long time. Sherlock doesn't move as the doctor inhales him in, because this is the only thing better than he imagined before—the feeling of him breathing beneath him. He doesn't know whether he should try to fight him into the sofa or rip of his clothes to feel his body heat closer, to crawl up in it and close his eyes. He's weary, when he glances to the clock it tells him it's 5:23; the night out and the drinks doesn't feel in the same lifetime. Sherlock's unusually quiet, though John doesn't care. This is his to take. He's missed him desperately for over a year and a half—he can just put up with it. If he's going mad, he's going to savour every last second he gets with the man he loves.

Watson gradually becomes aware of a hand stroking up and down the back of his next and into his hair. It's so light he can hardly feel it. He not sure when it started. John smiles a weakly.

"Thought you'd hate this kind of thing."

Sherlock doesn't reply, just continues to stare blankly ahead of him. "You're not going to leave me again, are you?" John asks.

His friend finally begins to stir and sits up. "No, why would I do that?"

"You left me before. How am I supposed to know? I don't know what's going on now. Stay."

"Well," Sherlock starts looking at him, "I will admit that _most_ people lack the observational skills to deduce it."

"You still think you can read me just like that?"

"Obviously."

John laughs, and it hurts his chest, though he's not laughing hard. The pair slip back into comfortable silence with John watching Sherlock; watching because he didn't have the chance before. Eventually, the detective meets his gaze and he feels awkward, like when he was younger and trying to chat up a girl he liked.

"Want some tea?" John asks to break the tension. And Sherlock nods back. It gives him something to do.

He spends far too long in the kitchen, and when he returns he looks like he's been crying. Sherlock doesn't mention anything because that feels wrong and invasive. He sets the two cups down facing Sherlock; as he reaches for a cup, John bats his hand away. "That's mine. It's not like your tea," he says as he raises it to his lips and takes a long sip.

John turns on the telly and settles himself back on the sofa; all that's on at this time in the morning is the dull breakfast shows, so he flicks on an episode of _QI_ that he had recorded. "You're not allowed to try and correct it this time, okay. I just want to watch it without you being a tosser. I want it quiet." His voice is fragile and sorrowful.

Sherlock weakly half-smirks a reply; "As if I would do such a thing?"

It's everything John's missed since he died: the tiredness and ridiculous hours due to Sherlock, the veging out in front of the telly and moaning, the security in knowing that you're not alone. He missed his best friend; it wasn't only the falling in love with him—or realising it—it was the company of having him there. He misses everything.

On the too small couch, he sits next to him—close enough to feel his body heat but not touching. It hurts his heart to know that he was deprived of it for so long. He cherishes each second.

John's limbs feel heavy as he finishes his tea, so he has to force himself to swallow the last few overly-sugary, disgusting mouthfuls. He sets the cup down with an air of finality.

"Tell me what you did." He wants to listen to him speak.

Sherlock's attention is distracted from the telly to look at John. "What I did when?"

"You know," he sighs deeply, "when you were away. What were you doing?"

"I spent my time hunting down the remainders of Moriarty's circle; an operation like his meant he had to have had lots of people who worked for him who were willing to assume his place. It was a worldwide operation, which is why it took so long for me to get back to you. I spent most of my time in Asia and America as it seems that was where the majority of his buyers and operatives were located—it turns out that London wasn't that important for the consulting business, which makes sense: why would a consulting criminal operate a criminal enterprise primarily out of where you live? It just attracts attention from authorities."

Sherlock stops as John closes his eyes again before forcing them open. "S-sorry. Do continue."

He doesn't.

He just keeps looking at John.

Something is off.

Eventually, John picks up the conversation. "When you died, it was horrible but okay. Doesn't really make any sense but it does. Like the funeral and everything was horrible, and losing my best friend was horrible, but I thought in the end I'd get over it. Had to move out for a bit, y'know, but I was doing all right."

Sherlock can't figure out what's confusing him, and it's perturbing. "I could've sworn I saw you when I went to your grave. And I knew I hadn't because you don't see dead people, and that's when I got scared. I couldn't trust myself anymore.

"Then I figured out the whole…loving thing, and I know—I know that everyone thought we were, and we weren't, but it was a fucking shock I'll tell you. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't concentrate. It was worse than when I saw you jump, although that doesn't make much sense either.

"I know you'd have never liked me back, and that was what made me feel the most guilty about all of that shit, which is a really fucked up way of looking at it." Sherlock's brain is working overdrive and the penny is only starting to drop. "But I did get better. Ish."

His limbs start to go limp as he looks at Sherlock one last time before closing his eyes. "But it wasn't really getting better, was it? I've not been fine for a while now, and now it's gone too far."

_No,_ Sherlock thinks. _This isn't happening. No. This was not predicted. This is not happening._

"If I can't even stay sane, how the fuck am I supposed to be a doctor? I don't have anything else." John's voice is faint.

_This isn't happening. No. No. No. No. No._

Sherlock gets to his feet and looks towards the kitchen—he sees the pill bottle in the middle of the worktop.

_No. I would have observed this before. This is not an option. No._

"You and helping people were all I had. You went and killed yourself, and now I can't do anything anymore, so there's not really much of a point to anything."

There seems to be a glitch in Sherlock's vast brain that's only starting to sort itself out. "John, I'm alive."

John grimaces and shakes his head.

"I am alive. I am real. Look at me, John."

With the last of his energy he half opens his eyes. "Suppose this is it. My note."

Sherlock is grasping John by the shoulders and trying to pull him to his feet, unsuccessfully. "John, please." This is what he does when emotions get too much and he doesn't know how to handle them: his mind feels like it's screaming but he just looks like he's staring, drugged by fear. He wants to be screaming but his body isn't cooperating.

There's barely a whisper.

"Goodbye, Sherlock."

Sherlock's blood chills.

His mouth is dry.

He is frozen.

This was not predicted.

He spent almost two years thinking about this, and this was not predicted.

And the two years became meaningless, and the rest of his life.

And Sherlock is stranded alone.

"O happy dagger. This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die."


End file.
